For the conventional method to produce at one time and continuously the plural resin forms, it is necessary to prepare plural extruding apparatuses for extruding the resin material, therefore the cost for apparatus becomes extremely high. And in general, the extruded reactive or not reactive resin material which is in liquid state or semisolid state becomes resin form by heat treatment using a heating furnace after extruded.
In this case, when the extruded amount and mixing condition of each starting materials are same condition, the plural products having uniform quality can be obtained by using same heat treatment condition of the same heating furnace. However, if the extruded amount and mixing conditions are different, the qualities of obtained products become uneven.
For example, conventionally, a rope shaped chloroprene-rubber foam or EPDM rubber foam is produced by being extruded from a single shaft type rubber extruder to the horizontal direction and then heat set.
At the point when these products are extruded from an extruder, since these products have sufficient viscoelasiticity, the form retaining ability of these products are good. Therefore, in cases of these products, the products form and retain circular shape or modified cross-sectional shape only by extruded on a conveyor belt and it is possible to produce the foamed product of circular shape or modified cross-sectional shape by heat foaming.
Said these rope shaped rubber foam products are extruded by a single shaft type rubber extruder, and the number of extruding strings are restricted to one or two.
When more than 2 rope shaped products are extruded, it is necessary to extrude products of same size by same speed, because said products are extruded and foamed on a belt without using a mold. Thus, the plural products of same size can be formed on one belt. However, the upper limit of number of strings by said extruding method is 2, because the amount of each divided liquid is balanced by fine pressure balance, and in cases when the number of strings are more than 3, it is difficult to extrude products by same conditions e.g. same speed and same size.
And, even if more than 3 strings of rubber products can be extruded by same speed and same size using plural extruders, it is substantially difficult to obtain rope shaped rubber foams of same size in the subsequent heat foaming process, because the blending and extruding conditions of each extruder are delicately different.
According to the ground mentioned above, although the rope shaped rubber foam has excellent features, the productivity of it is very poor and the production cost is very high, therefore the application of it is limited.
Further, the production of resin form such as thermosetting polyurethane resin, phenol resin and reactive silicone resin or foamed product thereof from resin materials directly by the same process as to rubber foam using an extruder is difficult, because the viscoelasiticity of these resins are too small to retain their shape.
In the case to produce plural resin forms at one time from reactive resin materials e.g. above mentioned polyurethane resin using plural mixing machines, it is necessary that all conditions of extruded reactive resin material are same. However, since these conditions are delicately different from each other, it is not only difficult to produce plural resin forms of same quality by same apparatus but also the expenses for equipment is remarkably high. In the meanwhile, the foaming resin material having lower viscoelasiticity can be easily molded to the rope shaped by using a mold made of metal or resin, however, not only a foam of longer size can not be obtained but also the productivity is low and the product becomes very expensive.
Accordingly, the technique to produce plural resin forms at one time and continuously using various kind of starting materials, which have variations from lower viscoelasiticity to higher viscoelasiticity and from reactive resin material to non-reactive resin material has been strongly desired.
The present invention is carried out to dissolve the above mentioned problem, and the present invention is to provide an apparatus which divides starting material for resin which is in liquid state or semisolid state to plural number continuously and the time necessary for dividing is extremely short, the residence time of the resin materials from an inlet to an outlet of each divided part are same, further the divided amount of liquid of each divided parts are same or voluntarily adjustable. That is, the object of the present invention is to provide a method for production of resin form by dividing and extruding resin material continuously using above mentioned apparatus. Further, another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for production.
Furthermore, the present invention provides a method and an apparatus which is possible to produce plural resin forms at one time and continuously for long time even if a reactive resin material is used. Namely, peculiarity of the present invention is that, even if the number of dividing parts are from several to tens, the residing time in all divided parts are equal, that is, the residence times from the starting point of dividing to the end point of dividing of each parts of the dividing apparatus are almost equal and extremely short.